Mr. Nam Gi Min (a Ph.D. candidate in Prof. Shin-Hyun Kim's group) received a Minister Award of National Defense and a reward of 100,000,000 KRW in the contest of 'Challenge! K-Startup 2018' on December 10, 2018.

This contest was held to discover preliminary or early entrepreneurs with great potential for start-up and to ultimately provide successful commercialization opportunities to them. The National Research Foundation of Korea, Korea Entrepreneurship Foundation, Spark, National IT Industry Promotion Agency, Korea Institute of Startup & Entrepreneurship Development, Center for Creative Economy & Innovation, Korea Communications Agency, and Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity co-organized the contest and the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of National Defense, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups sponsored it.

A total of 5,770 teams from 108 countries participated in the qualifying round of the contest, among which 135 teams advanced to the second round. Through additional evaluation for three months, only 10 teams survived in the final round. JTBC broadcast the selection process in eight episodes of the "Battle of the Entrepreneur Gods, Startup Big Bang" from Oct. 31 to Dec. 19 2018.

Mr. Min participated as a pre-entrepreneur of the Opalette and presented pigment-free color contact lenses. He developed the mysterious colors using nanostructures without any chemical pigments and improved oxygen permeability of the lenses. He was selected as the final top 10.

Eun Hae Yoo, deputy prime minister and minister of Education, Jong Haak Hong, minister of SMEs and Startups, and Mok Hee Lee, vice chairman of the Presidential Committee on Jobs attended the awards ceremony.

Mr. Min said "I am very pleased that investors and public appreciate our R&D achievements," and he also said, "We are preparing for commercialization of our new color lens and would like to lead contact-lens industry."